IFFR 2003

Marc Ottiker

This paranoid cyber-thriller shifts into something completely bizarre and moving. A hacker on the run slips into people's apartments during their absence. Relationships between the man without an ID and de residents start to develop.

tiger competition

1/2 Miete

André van der Hout

Musical elements and archive material is mixed in this surrealist drama about a son who goes looking for his father in Rotterdam. Several roles are played by members of the Dutch band De Kift.

De arm van Jezus

Simon Pummell

An epic movie of the story of a human life, using found footage from the last 100 years of cinema, scored by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.

Bodysong

Jérôme Bonnell

Members of a young family come to terms with the death of their mother, each in their own way. Subtle revelations in a style similar to Eric Rohmer's.

Le chignon d'Olga

Santiago Loza

Yet another major new talent from that surprising hot house for cinema: Argentina. A proudly 'intimiste' and small-scale work with great resonance with marvellous acting and fine direction. An older unemployed man meets a younger, pregnant woman. They tentatively move in together but nothing seems firm.

Extraño

Park Chan-Ok

Young editor is jealous of his boss, because he stole the heart of the woman the editor also yearns for. At the same time, he admires his rival in love. Park's complex drama of relationships is an impressive début.

Jealousy Is My Middle Name

Amir Shahab Razavian

Yet another major talent appears on the stage of the Iranian cinema, with an eye for images and an ear for music. Quirky and ironic, touching and endearingly self-conscious, the story of three old musicians and puppeteers who set off on a long journey across Iran, performing en route and re-discovering old friends.

Journey of the Grey Men

Iseya Yusuke

A very energetic, fresh and skilful début in DV from young Tokyo actor and model. Hanging out, clubbing and drugging, a young band of friends get way in over their heads when they inadvertently lose a stash of drugs they're meant to deal to their friends.

Kakuto

Wiebke von Carolsfeld

Agnes returns to her parental home to visit her sick mother and to put paid to a few painful affairs in her past. Moving drama with powerful actresses, including Molly Parker, about human (in)capacity.

Marion Bridge

Eliane Caffé

A playful and humorous celebration of the imagination, invention and story-telling. Attempting to halt the building of a dam that will flood it, the inhabitants embark on a flurry of storytelling to recall and invent a significant history for their nondescript town.

Narradores de Javé

Dagur Kári

Powerful, atmospheric Icelandic feature début. A wonderboy and drop-out on an Icelandic village scale, Noi (17), dreams of escaping from his remote fjord with the girl from the filling station.

Nói Albinói

Penny Woolcock

Unemployed writer is seduced by a wild woman and experiences a rarely seen crazy ride in the world of drugs, stripclubs and fist fights. Feature début by British talent, that previously made fine TV films.

Principles of Lust

Andrew Cheng

Absolutely not what you have come to expect from China, either in the way of film making or a vision of city life. Sexual sub-cultures, fringe lives, captured by a member of the new hip generation as a series of moments, part ironic, part theatrical, part real, in carefully controlled, high-colour digital cinema style.

Welcome to Destination Shanghai

Larisa Sadilova

A quest by a woman in the Russian countryside for true love and happiness. She does this in the time that is left between caring for her old father and her work in the local poultry slaughterhouse.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025